Coventry RFC 2019/20 season (1 Viewer)

oldfiver

Well-Known Member

Championship clubs in shock over RFU’s decision to slash funding by 50%



Championship clubs in shock over RFU’s decision to slash funding by 50%

• RFU accused of giving Premiership ‘ring-fencing on a plate’
• Swingeing cuts of more than £3m come into force next season


E



Championship clubs currently receive around £550,000 in funding though halving that could lead to a return to the amateur game ‘in two to three years’. Photograph: George Wood/Getty Images
The Rugby Football Union is to cut its funding of the Championship by 50%, throwing England’s second tier into turmoil and handing “ring-fencing to the Premiership on a plate”.

It is understood the RFU’s swingeing cuts of more than £3m will come into force next season, leaving a number of Championship clubs in a state of shock and uncertain of their futures. One club owner described the move as “showing contempt” for the Championship, suggesting the league could be reduced to amateur status in “two or three years”.

The move has been described as Premiership ring-fencing “by default”, with Saracens set to be relegated into a league beset by financial strife next season. “The RFU has handed ring-fencing to the Premiership on a plate and they’ve paid nothing for it,” added a Championship source. “They’ve just given it away.”

3000.jpg

Broadcasting rights impasse puts CVC’s £300m Six Nations deal in peril
Read more
The 12 clubs were informed of the measures at a committee meeting on Tuesday. They receive around £550,000 in funding but halving that at such short notice will be “catastrophic”, according to one source, with another suggesting it could leave 200 players without clubs.

Premiership Rugby Limited, which contributes to Championship funding, has been seeking to pull up the drawbridge but failed in its attempts to implement an end to relegation for the start of this season. The tier-two clubs will now have to operate on significantly lower budgets and, with a host of players on long-term contracts, some clubs face considerable upheaval to stay afloat let alone push for promotion.

“It’s the RFU saying it doesn’t want the Championship,” the Nottingham chairman, Alistair Bow, said. “The Premiership has had a lot of influence over all the decisions regarding the Championship, certainly for the 10 years I’ve been involved. I do strongly believe the actions the RFU has taken have handed PRL everything on a plate and without having to pay a penny for it. The RFU has handed English professional rugby … everything, to the hands of PRL.”

The RFU announced a return to profit in December but more losses were forecast for the coming year. The latest annual report highlighted a 7% reduction in investment in the professional game and a 6% drop at community level. The accounts also showed a drop of £7m in investment to £100.5m, and that figure was forecast to fall to £95m in the next year.

“It’s not a money-saving exercise, it’s more to do with value for money,” Bow said. “Either the RFU has been very badly informed, or misinformed. I don’t think they know what the cuts will do for a club like Nottingham. It’s nothing more than contempt for what we’re trying to do for the sport as a whole. I just wonder if these people at the RFU who make these decisions have ever run a proper business.”

Premiership Rugby are from Mars and Saracens are from Venus


PRL has long been trumpeting its A League as an alternative second tier for English rugby and, emboldened by its cash injection of more than £200m, appears to have got its way. One source suggested the Championship had “fallen victim to the cartel that is PRL”, while another said there has been a lack of explanation from the RFU for the cuts.

“The bit that’s frustrating is what is the rationale behind the savage cut in funding? Are they rugby reasons or is it purely financial,” a Championship director of rugby said. “It’s a massive backwards step.

“The RFU obviously don’t see us as part of the pathway programme which is a bit sad really given what the Championship has done for the Premiership and England over the years. What about the coaching pathway, where are they going to cut their teeth, what about the refereeing pathway? Five or six years ago they were saying we had to all be fully professional. Now, suddenly, they say you have to be firmly part-time.”
 

tisza

Well-Known Member
scary from a business point of view that a reduction of "just" 350k per year could damage these clubs so much
 

oldskyblue58

CCFC Finance Director
Disgraceful short sighted clueless decision. I am not surprised Jon Sharp is fuming. Anyone with an interest in CRFC or rugby outside of the Premiership should be

Coventry Rugby statement regarding RFU funding changes – Coventry Rugby

Statement on behalf of Cornish Pirates and Coventry Rugby

there is an attachment on the joint statement detailing the proposals put to the RFU before they made this decision

As i understand it some of the clubs have already made the decision to go semi-pro. Rugby seems intent on shooting itself in both feet courtesy of the RFU
 

Nick

Administrator
Its an insult to clubs like Cov who have made the step to pro from semi pro really.

Why would they want to limit the amount of pro teams and pro rugby players in the country? Surely it might encourage them to go abroad?

I am by no means a rugby expert but won't it have some sort of impact on the England team?
 

Kneeza

Well-Known Member
They're only interested in England (first) and the Prem (second).
Unforunately the stupid mixed-up gin-soaked twats are only good at shooting feet and pulling rugs.
There's a petition out there demanding the removal of the RFU board. Probably futile, but at least it helps express the disgust from the fans on the way they and their community clubs are being shat on.
Please sign it if you feel you can.
Sorry, don't have the link to hand, but it should be easy enough to find on www.change.org
Will have look and post it in a bit.
 

tisza

Well-Known Member
All about PRL.
RFU going to help modify overseas player rules. Some clubs already got 20+ non qualified players.
Sure there will an increase in salary cap to get "better" overseas players.
Going the same way as PL & FA in football. All about a few clubs and money. PRL to end up pulling all the strings - same as football.
If rugby championship scales back or goes semi-pro then going to effect their TV contract as well.
Can make a similar argument for cricket with the Hundred, downgrading of county competitions.
 

SBAndy

Well-Known Member
All about PRL.
RFU going to help modify overseas player rules. Some clubs already got 20+ non qualified players.
Sure there will an increase in salary cap to get "better" overseas players.
Going the same way as PL & FA in football. All about a few clubs and money. PRL to end up pulling all the strings - same as football.
If rugby championship scales back or goes semi-pro then going to effect their TV contract as well.
Can make a similar argument for cricket with the Hundred, downgrading of county competitions.

Just want to bang their heads together and ask if they realise what they’re doing.
 

tisza

Well-Known Member
Sorry, CVC have bailed out the RFU?
PRL. Now they have to find a way to ring fence their position by making impossible for anyone outside of stakeholders to be in top division.
Haven't learnt the lesson of Super rugby that they need competitive games throughout the season or income drops. Like us in the 80s relegation battles used to bring in bigger crowds than when we were safe from relegation.
RFU already struggling to handle PRL. Lost the battle over extra internationals and training time. Trying to avoid all out conflict. Not just RFU cutting funding to Championship PRL are going to cut (or completely drop) their funding to championship as well
 

SBAndy

Well-Known Member
PRL. Now they have to find a way to ring fence their position by making impossible for anyone outside of stakeholders to be in top division.
Haven't learnt the lesson of Super rugby that they need competitive games throughout the season or income drops. Like us in the 80s relegation battles used to bring in bigger crowds than when we were safe from relegation.
RFU already struggling to handle PRL. Lost the battle over extra internationals and training time. Trying to avoid all out conflict. Not just RFU cutting funding to Championship PRL are going to cut (or completely drop) their funding to championship as well

Aware of the PRL piece, but I meant about banging heads together at the RFU. It’s almost as if they’ve taken no learnings from the state football is in now.
 

andy86

Member
Seems the RFU see established clubs like Coventry, Bedford, Richmond etc.. as an inconvenience. They would much rather have a second division of Wasps A, Harlequins A, Leicester Tigers A etc..

Sad day for rugby :(
 

wingy

Well-Known Member
Home / Features / Columnists / Cain column: Championship should go down legal route in this bloody battle
Cain column: Championship should go down legal route in this bloody battle
Posted on 18th February 2020 by admin in Columnists, Featured, Features, Nick Cain with 0 Comments
bill-sweeney-800x534.jpg

THE only conclusion that can be drawn from the cynical slashing of Championship funding by Bill Sweeney, is that instead of being the governing body of the whole game in England, the RFU have turned into a rotten borough.

It has become the supine vassal of the Premiership clubs, doing their bidding irrespective of the damage it does to the rest of the game.


ADVERTISING
Twickenham have even supplied the Premiership with their chairman, Ian Ritchie, who went straight from one vast pay packet as RFU chief executive to a new post with the club cartel.

Ritchie and the Premiership’s former chief executive, Mark McCafferty, who now works for CVC, the venture capitalists who acquired a 27 per cent stake in the Premiership last year, have long been supporters of ring-fencing.

This week a plan to deliver it came into plain sight with RFU hatchet man Sweeney attempting to chop down the Championship, the main tree that keeps the canopy of the RFU’s own league structure alive.

As an act of administrative vandalism it takes some beating – especially as it has the potential to bring the tree crashing down on a Twickenham administration that seems to be totally at odds with its own mission statement “to encourage rugby, and its values, to flourish across England”.

In the RFU Strategic Plan 2017-21, entitled Game Of Our Lives, is a pledge to “Protect everything that makes rugby in England so special. Protecting community and professional clubs and players is of paramount importance in creating a successful game for generations of players to enjoy.”

Sweeney and RFU performance director Conor O’Shea should consider how that sits with the projected loss of over 300 jobs in the Championship if their projected cut in July from the current £530,000 per club annual funding to £288,000 stands.

It is laughable that Sweeney and O’Shea talk about the rationale for the cuts being Championship clubs failing to meet “a set of objectives and deliverables” while the RFU fail so blatantly to meet their own published objectives and commitments.

The claims made by Sweeney and O’Shea that Championship clubs are failing to deliver on multiple fronts – from being financially viable and having ambition to be promoted, to increased numbers of England-qualified players, coaches and referees – is also, for the most part, hogwash.

tree-sweeney.jpg

In fact, it bears all the hallmarks of a subterfuge aimed at delivering a franchise style ring-fenced Premiership while spouting weasel words about the need to preserve promotion and relegation.

While most Championship clubs are losing money, their losses are manageable, and the vast majority are certainly no worse in terms of boardroom governance than those in the Premiership, whose annual losses are £40m. The question this begs is how does the RFU justify bailing out that Premiership club debt while chopping Championship funding by between 40 and 50 percent?

On the subject of ambition, at least half of the clubs in the Championship are investing substantially in their futures.

Cornish Pirates are in the process of building a new stadium; Coventry are redeveloping their stadium; Nottingham have deals in place to play at Meadow Lane (Notts County); Doncaster and Ealing Trailfinders have made a goal of going up – and a more ambitious agenda is said to have taken root at Bedford.

At the last count all the Championship clubs were meeting the targets for 17 English-qualified players in each match day squad – more than can be said for many of their Premiership rivals.

For instance, O’Shea’s old club, London Irish, went into Saturday’s match against Harlequins, with just five England qualified players in their starting line-up. Perhaps Sweeney should examine if the RFU are getting value for the £228m eight-year deal they signed with the Premiership in 2016 before they start laying waste to the Championship.

Sweeney argues, against all the available evidence, that the Championship has not developed English coaches and referees. Wayne Barnes refereed in the Championship for a couple of seasons, and Matt Carley, Luke Pearce, Tom Foley and Karl Dickson were all doing Tier Two games before being promoted.

Coach-wise we have Rob Baxter (Exeter), Simon Amor (England), Alex Codling (England U20), Lee Blackett, Ian Costello (both Wasps), Matt Ferguson (Northampton), Glenn Delaney (London Irish/Scarlets), who learnt their trade in the Championship.

simon-amor-620x414.jpg

Arc: London Scottish director of rugby Simon Amor pictured at the season launch in 2011. The former scrum-half is now England attack coach. Bryn Lennon/Getty Images for RFU
Sweeney has clearly not done enough homework before embarking on his slash and burn policy, and nothing illustrates it more clearly than his suggestion that the Championship has produced only one England player of note in Exeter’s Harry Williams, who played for Jersey.

Jack Nowell and Luke Cowan-Dickie both learned their rugby at Cornish Pirates and the majority of the players in the England squad over the past decade have played for either a Championship or National League club during their development.

There was a great schism in this sport over a century ago, and the RFU should tread warily on the path that Sweeney, O’Shea and current chairman, Andrew Coslett, appear to be leading them down.

There is huge disenchantment with the governing body in not just the Championship, but also in the community/grassroots club game.

The RFU were forced into a climbdown over lower league reforms after a rebellion from Lancashire grass roots clubs two years ago, and now some Championship clubs are considering a breakaway.

An administrative split would not serve rugby’s best interests, but if it brings the RFU back to their core business of being custodians for the game as a whole, it may be a necessary evil.

The rank-and-file clubs are the constituents of the RFU, and they are also part of a mutual co-operative society that owns Twickenham. Given that the ground is the cash cow that funds a significant part of the revenue paid by the RFU to the Premiership it means they have considerable leverage.

So far, the Championship clubs have called for a two-year moratorium on the cuts. They have a strong case given that the mid-term review of the RFU’s £228m deal with the Premiership is due in June. If there are cuts to be made, surely they should be shared by the Premiership clubs?

It is unlikely the Premiership clubs will see it that way. That is why this gentlemanly Championship response is mistaken.

The Championship chairman Geoff Irvine is in danger of wielding a plastic knife rather than a broadsword in an arena in which the RFU’s axemen, Sweeney and O’Shea, have already made it clear that they intend to wound the Championship so grievously that it bleeds out.

Now that the Armageddon scenario of no funding is staring them in the face, with their own union seeking to chop them down, the Championship clubs must take action.

A starting point would be to canvas the rank-and-file clubs with a view to holding an immediate SGM calling for a no-confidence vote in the current RFU administration.

The Championship clubs should also take advice on legal proceedings to challenge the RFU’s financial arrangements with a Premiership cartel which has relied on restraint of trade protectionism and funding inequality to deny other clubs with professional ambitions the right to compete in English rugby’s top league.

It is time for the Championship clubs, and the National League and community clubs, to stand their ground and demand an RFU that protects their interests.

NICK CAIN
Here's the view from the coalface with some fighting talk.
 

duffer

Well-Known Member

A farce. First it’s an immediate cut because the Championship clubs didn’t meet some unspecified target, then it’s a possible phased cut where the RFU don’t seem to have any idea what the purpose of the Championship is.

Clue: The point is, like most leagues, to compete, avoid relegation, and if possible win promotion!

The RFU are in serious danger of making the EFL look almost competent by comparison.
 

wingy

Well-Known Member
A farce. First it’s an immediate cut because the Championship clubs didn’t meet some unspecified target, then it’s a possible phased cut where the RFU don’t seem to have any idea what the purpose of the Championship is.

Clue: The point is, like most leagues, to compete, avoid relegation, and if possible win promotion!

The RFU are in serious danger of making the EFL look almost competent by comparison.
The follow up piece by Cain is revealing the interconnectedness of executives , like the guy who got hired by CVC
 

Kneeza

Well-Known Member
Welcome to the fantasy world of the Rugby Football Union.
Making the EFL look competent for (insert arbitrary numbery) years.
Just sick of the gin-soaked bastards.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top